FoodTrendwatcher forecasts African food "foot in the door" in 2011

Marjan Ippel, Dutch food trend watcher yesterday launched her latest guidebook for food trends "What (not) to eat in 2011. A very interesting read- at the moment only in Dutch..

 We were delighted- She writes enthusiastically about African food. According to Marjan, this under - appreciated cuisine is finally on its way up.

Well known  products such as coffee, tea, chocolate also lesser known food stuffs, grains-

 spelt and teff, and unusual spice blends will start to appear on tables this coming year. 

She  mentions the New African Cookbook project as one to keep an eye on!

      

Peanuts in his pocket

A meeting with cook Raul Carvalho, to talk about Angolan food, turned into a most enjoyable evening. We not only chatted, but also cooked together. 

Ingmar & Raul

Preparing cassava

He shared prized Angolan ingredients, his personal music collection, and very special stories from his youth.

This tale I loved most.

Growing up ,the Carvalho kids( there were 13 of them) were never short of a snack or a nibble during childhood adventures. A slice of peeled, raw cassava(crunchy and slightly sweet), piece of baobab fruit or Raul’s personal favourite, a handful of “gingubas” unshelled groundnuts in his pocket kept hunger at bay.

Baobab fruit

Delicious Angolan food

    

Celebrate!

We couldn’t let the opportunity pass to celebrate our exhibition. On 1^st October we invited friends and clients interested in The New African Cookbook Project to view the work, get festive and enjoy with us.

Clockwise from top left- 1. It was busy and the vibe was relaxed. 2.Sean Fitzpatrick ( Photographer of New African Cookbook), welcomes friends Stephanie and Samantha. 3. Annette Badenhorst from Wosa spoils stylist Eddy Frings with a glass of fine South African wine. 4. Kinito Van-Dunem hugs Gavin and Ryan 

exhibition

While we're wait for publishers to seize the moment, were very pleased to show some of the imagery from our project at the Afrovibes festival 2 locations in Netherlands & 3 in the UK.

Kenya calling....

Peninah Njuguna, the designer of our New African Cookbook introduces herself and gives the game away... with just a small hint of things to come. She's "kanganised" ( made to look like a kanga...) her self- portrait. Kanganising is a theme which runs through our cook- book- to -be.

The saying on the Kanga loosely translated into into English "little by little fills the measure- a fitting metaphor not only for cooking but the process of producing a book! 

meet Carole

WHAT ARE WE  EATING LEO??

By Carole Keingati

Leo. (E as in egg) means Today in Kiswahili.  And today I’m so glad to hear our project is getting the green light! 

Im super excited to be a part of this project! One I love to write, Love Africa and yes I looove to eat!

So what can I say about myself?  I’m freshly in my thirties, and working as a creative writer in a Radio Station in Kenya (The Best Country in the World).  I love to write, read, theatre, music, great conversation and generally enjoying this life. Hmm..what else… I can be pretty indecisive, but hey, I’m a second-born middle child, Cancer-sign, who can be a tad emotional, regards herself as a free spirit ( ok not THAT free—get your mind out of the gutter) and someone who loves to love.

Did I say I love to eat?  But not just eating, it’s the whole ceremony and act of sharing with friends, taking in the air, tasting, thinking, laughing, quibbling…

So lets see…

It’s Friday at my work place. This means, pretty much everyone has walked in through the doors in an upbeat mood, because it’s dress-down Friday— the only day in the week that we’ve dropped the suits, stilettos and slacks for open sandals, sneaker and jeans. Someone will even throw in a baseball cap, hat or beanie, or the bright geometrical patterns of a Lesso crafted into a modern maxi dress--after all this is one of Kenya’s largest radio stations. We’re hip!  Our General Manager has probably came to work on Motorbike. The air is festive; most already have their Friday plot (evening plan) in mind but most importantly on Fridays, we sneak in our 1.5 hour lunch. Friday Lunch…unofficially, the start of the Weekend. (Gathering the troops is another headache that makes lunch all the more satisfying…for example…via SMS/Email…Person 1: aah ah I don’t like that place!  Person 2: what??I’m broke!  Person 3: Totally! No red meat tho I’m on a diet…. )

…It’s a pretty fascinating process that we take to plan this lunch; Usually we love to eat  outdoors—it’s Nairobi so that gentle breeze against the 30+ degree sunshine suits us perfectly. We can watch  that  Friday traffic which starts as early as 1pm , bumper to bumper I kid you not) till late until late evening buzz. Over lunch we can watch it trudge along and be completely unaffected it by it having left work at 12.50 sharp!

Eating Outdoors in Nairobi takes different glorious forms from posh Alfrescos uptown for Italian, French, Lebanese or Indian Cuisine, a quick bite at malls for neon-lit fast food, or more grounded ethic-styled places; small and fast -paced  eateries that create delicious traditionally Kenyan dishes from containers and tin structures along the roads.

 It’s quite an experience as there is usually a (fat) ‘mama’ cooking up a feast from behind the counter as patrons huddle together over small tables. Here you’ll mainly eat by hand, a huge plastic overturned drum will serve as the washing area—some are often heated by the sun to provide a hot stream of water to sanitize your hands. You have to be ‘chap chap’--quick-- within 30 min your food is served, devoured and cleared away for the next batch of Nairobi professionals.

 You’ll find these eateries close to office buildings --providing consistent quality lunch reminiscent of a home cooked meal. They are some with bar counters nearby known as vibandas (round huts, with Makuti (reeds) on the roofs only for the effect (puleese this is NAIROBI), and tables that wobble and just sigh like you will after the feast is over.  I guarantee it!

Today I’ve ordered my Favorite; Fish (Whole Fish with the eye staring at me and all)  Chapati and Sukuma.  Chapati is an Indian Flat-bread that we Kenyans inherited and gladly distorted into fatter, puffier versions of the original. Sukuma Wiki is Kale, that salty leafy tasting leaf that I love! (The Name Sukuma Wiki is completely other story for another day..) all I can say is….Goes down Great with Friends!!

Suki Wiki with fish in Nairobi

Fruits of my labour

Cassava "scotch" egg

Precious purchases from Abai store( see previous entry) found their way into some interesting West African recipes this week. Coconut pancakes with spicy sugar were delicious. A variation on Scotch eggs, with a layer of cassava puree and spicy peanut crust with Shito sauce was also tasty- the cassava puree could have been creamier…The Shito sauce (a hot pepper sauce with shrimp, and smoked fish) was tastier than the commercial variety I compared it to- here’s the recipe.  Ingmar 

Shito sauce

For 1 jar

Preparation time: about 30 minutes

2 red chillies,

1 red bell pepper/paprika,

2 cloves garlic, crushed

20 g dried shrimp

10 g dried smoked fish

2 cm fresh ginger, grated

200 ml sunflower oil

2 tablespoons tomato puree

1 teaspoon salt

Place the shrimp and fish in a medium sized bowl and cover with boiling water. Soak for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile toast the chillies and pepper over an open flame until the skins blister and blacken. Place them in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave for 15 minutes. They will start “sweating” and the skins will loosen. Scrape most of the blackened skin off with a sharp knife, remove the pith and chop. Place the flesh in a small saucepan with the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 30 minutes. Puree, allow to cool and transfer to a screw top jar.

Fabulous African in Amsterdam

Obi mans the till

Visit Obi & Christina Amadikwa at their African grocers called Abia Store in Amsterdam.  It’s a delight, if you want to try African cooking- they stock just about everything - dried catfish, smoked shrimp, maize and cassava in all their forms -dried, fresh, ground and whole… ingredients from all over the continent. Nigerian Obi, opened the shop less than a year ago and it is flourishing. A friendly chat, cooking advice and perhaps even a taste are all part of the pleasures of shopping there.

Egusi seeds, dried chillis, smoked fish powder & much, much more

Abia Store

Hoofdweg 640

1055 AB Amsterdam

tel: 020 6824190

New Favorite Cookbook

On loan from a dear collegue- a wonderful little Gambian cookbook with  surprising and delicious sounding  recipes ..which I will be testing soon. A type of Scotch egg with a cassava crust, paw paw jam, tomato juice made with fresh tomatoes, coconut omelet are the ones I'll try first.

Mercado de Peixe, Maputo

We had an early start photographing a number of different fish dishes, Cape frikkadels with very good peach chutney, Liboké, fish in banana leaf and a fried Tilapia with peanut sauce. Later we met our Mozambiquan friends and closed this final day with a session (and a dinner) at the very festive Mercado de Peixe where one buys fish at the market, it gets taken round the back to a small restaurant area and prepared on the spot to be consumed. What a feast!

Sean & Danielle 

We were warned,- if we forget all else about Mozambique( not likely)- there’s one word should remember- “Kanimambo”- thank you in Shangana.

So - Kanimambo Maputo, Xai Xai, - and all your lovely people, especially- Dona Serafina, Lilita, Helena and Joaõ, Buinta, and Belito, muito prazer e a proxima!!

Another working day in Maputo

This day, a lot of time was spent in various police stations trying to report last night’s incident, between which, we still managed to get work done.

First we photographed the beautiful Mercado Central, market in the centre of Maputo and in the afternoon - Helena -who besides her regular day job also runs a catering business. Her signature dish was a Mozambique classic, Caril de Caranguejo-  a crab curry(containing no curry). We tasted it- it was divine!

Helena's kitchen

Later we went to the Bairro de Pescadores, the old fish market a little ouside town.

Bairro de Pescadores

A buzzing place, beautiful, on the waters edge with the cutest little bar where there was some very groovy dancing going on.

Stuck!

Today the water supply in our accomodation had run dry, so we really HAD to take that dip in the ocean….We enlisted the help of a local lad who was still on school holidays to show us Xai Xai.

By default we stumbled upon the most wonderful Pesaõ Africano, a local hotel and restaurant, just across the road from the central market. The owner’s daughter-in-law was utterly charming and the interior classic. Sean shot a photo serie while we chatted and were invited to taste some of the dishes served there.

It was time to return to Maputo to start the last leg of this first trip. Of course we first managed to get our vehicle stuck in the sand-city slickers…We settled into our new accomodation and did prep for the next day’s photography session. The evening was spent at a hotel with wireless internet, catching up on admin and updating our blog. Then nastiest thing happened, in front of our Maputo accomodation we were robbed. Our attackers tried to take the car, somehow in the scuffle Sean managed to fob them off, sadly they got away with Ingmar’s laptop. We were shaken and shocked, this incident really put a damper on things for quite some time.

Dulobo sisters and their mum

The only way to start your working day when it’s 35°C – a dip in the Indian Ocean!

Danielle and I prepared a variety of African chicken dishes to take along to Casa Innocentia where we met the sisters Dulobu- our stars for the day. 

They found their kitchen at the casa too hot to work in and had built some fires on their patio to cook. Despite the heat we all worked fast and efficiently (sometimes things just fall into place) and had some time to feast on some of the Mozambique specialties- the family’s famed spicy duck-“chacutim de pato”, delicious okra with shrimp in coconut milk and “matseu” a local dish of stewed fresh pumpkin leaves with peanut. 

our styling case

Towards evening we headed off to their mum’s house to take a portrait of daughter Lilita and mom Dona Serafina. What a warm and welcoming woman. Her home is a beehive attracting all who need a plate of food, a kind word or something to drink. At 74, Serafina’s eyesight is not what it once was but when checking the photos with photographer Sean, even without her glasses, she commented that her daughter was perhaps showing a little too much cleavage! 

Arriving in Mozambique

There is always a feeling of joy when visiting a country for the first time. It’s as if we are great explorers ourselves. While approaching Maputo by air, a rooftop sign read “welcome to the country of Coca Cola”. Luckily for us and the cookbook, Mozambique turns out to be way more than that. After a brief acquaintance with Lilita and her sisterhood of cooks, we taste some traditional ingredients and a peep into their kitchen.

We have Lilita to accompany us on the 3 hour drive to Xai Xai. 

She met her Dutch husband here and now lives in Holland. She tells us that the difference between Mozambicans and the Hollanders is that the Dutch ask so many questions. And indeed we did. We not only discovered her full life story but found out everything about life in this fascinating country. Mozambique is a mix of Catholic and Muslim faith, of colonial past and recent civil war. Yet despite all this, it’s a warm and kind hearted people who live in this land.

As we drove to our cabin on the beach, we see more stars than sky. Lilita tells the story about her first visit to Holland. Her mother in law enthusiastically calls her outside to look up at the Dutch night sky then points at a few twinkling stars. But Lilita can’t see what’s so special up there! We turned the lights of as we drove along the sand road and looked up at the Milky Way in awe.

Last days in South Africa

Our last photo shoot in SA! The setting- dear friend Carissa's colourful kitchen and the subject dear friend Sibu Mbhata. Professor de Cuisine, Sibu took the job at hand very seriously- we found him pacing the garden reciting recipes out loud between bursts in the kitchen. Sean photographed, Ingmar plated the food, Danielle took notes, Sibu cooked and Carissa gave her (valued) view on everything and brought us up to date on local gossip.

Shoot day 3, started bright and breezy, 6 am peeling black-eyed peas! Danielle and I, found a turbo method....saved us peeling them one by one!

Armed with acooler bag of African Snack Food (theme of the day) we finally met in person our charming subject, 60 year old Ivorian Etienne Gaba (known to all as just Gaba) in his restaurant in Yeoville, Johannesburg. His place was  ramshackle but vibrant with smells of cooking and animated (French) football chatter.

We started off our photo shoot outside in the restaurant's yard. Pics of our own dishes, Etienne's delicious Ivorian food and a portrait of the man himself. Initially our presence was treated with caution, but after about an hour we were old friends. At first onlookers were a little wary to taste our bites from all over the continent but it wasn't long before the "dabo kolo" from Ethiopia, got a West African nod of approval.

Throughout the day we were kindly reprimanded by Etienne. Our uncontrived approach to photographing food was not quite what he had in mind as he neatly spooned things back into shape.

During the afternoon it started to pour, rain coming down in lorry loads. We scurried inside where Sean took some candid pics of patrons from all over West Africa. All this in good ol' Joburg!

The shoot ended after 6 pm literally as the last rays of sun were in the sky and we were satisfied! Tomorrow off to Mozambique- Thank you South Africa and all the the wonderful people who have helped us, looked after us and inspired us, Dana and Bruce; Carissa; Sibu; Etienne; Hennie and Ab; Erika and Rasigan, you're all wonderful.




When we phoned Indo-African Rasigan, our next subject, to plan a rendez-vous, he starts calculating.... The leg of lam he has bought is 2 kilo's, it needs 2 hours cooking time, lunch should be ready at 2 am, but the dish still has to be photographed so... let's meet at 11. Rasigan's scientific background has great effect on the manner in which he cooks. He uses 4 kitchen timers to get everything organized....? Yet Rasigan says non-westner would never weight their meat to calculate the exact cooking time!
According to Rasigan South African Indians settled here 5 to 6 generations and their dishes are still called curries, but have become truly South African. The first dish he cooked is a great example of this evolvement. He calls it an egg-chutney on toast, or simply Hangover eggs.

During the cooking time of his "piece de la resistance" Rasigan and partner Erika keep coming up with one delicious Indo- African dish after the other. Thanks to their scientific approach we got a well curried and very satisfying photo shoot before our stomachs started rumbling too loudly.

First Shooting Day

Oh if only you could smell what we smell right now. The house is filled with a mouth-watering composition of all of today's flavours. We started of this morning with going to a local shopping area, called Marabastad. In the parking area we met Mavis, who cooks and grills mielies.

At the next stall Sean photographed this very brave lady who put flattened beer and softdrink cans on top of the fire with her bare hands. She did do so in order to make a kind of diffuser and said like this the fire would still be a great cooking fire in the evening.

Once home we had to get into the 'veld' with Catherina to look for some morogo. Apparently a lot of recipes in South Africa which contain spinach the ingredient list will tell you it can be replaced by any other green edible leafs you can find in the fields.

Finally we were ready to shoot all the recipes Hennie had come up with. Especially for the cookbook Hennie had reinvented the possibilities of pap. The first officially photograped dish he made was delicious pap tert.

Which was followed by pap croutons, pap slices on the braai, and many more pap dishes.

Not bothered by any of the thunderstorms that came up in the afternoon we managed to have a good and stress-free start of the cookbook and finalized the direction the book should follow.

Travelling..

The Flight to Johannesburg turned out to be a real taste challenge. According to the law of physics your taste experience is different when high up in the air. Ok right we thought, everybody knows what black pepper should taste like. So we choose the airline salt & pepper sachets as the subject of our simple taste test. And surprise, the pepper was completely tasteless.
However once we had arrived at Hennie & Ab, Ingmar's friends in Pretoria, we had forgotten all about this strange experience. While shopping for next day's shoot we found some amazing packaging and so Sean started shooting right away. After the light had gone we suddenly remembered our pepper taste test again. I became the guinea pig and began to chew on the black flakes...

Danielle tastes tastless pepper

Hoping for a more tasty day today.....

tuesday, 12 january 2010

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Did you know that a Bamako Bride will eat a meaty thiou stew with fermented soumbala spices on her wedding day? Are you in search of a rich, gingery alternative to Banana Bread? Or maybe you are curious about the mystery ingredient in Baba Mleppo’s Pepper Soup? Here at last is the birth of an enticing book on African cooking stuffed full of culinary wisdom to satisfy every desire!


'Who’s is The Next House At Which We Will Drink Beer?' takes a fresh look at the African eating experience. It is the work of Ingmar Niezen and Sean Fitzpatrick, a South African food stylist and photographer team. We wish to celebrate a modern African culinary identity with this book. To do so, we will travel through the diverse countries of the continent, searching for delicious new flavours, combining surprising ingredients and re-tasting traditional favourites.


Our journey starts on Tuesday the 12th of January 2010 when we set off for a 2 week photo shoot in South Africa and Mozambique. Come and follow us via this blog and we'll give you an insight into the birth of our cookbook!